After a rough week on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney decided to release his 2011 tax returns, showing that he paid more in taxes than was legally necessary. John Nichols of The Nation magazine, syndicated radio host L. Joy Williams, The National Review editor Kevin Williamson, and The Guardian's Ana Marie Cox join Up w/ Chris Hayes to discuss why the Romney campaign opted for the move.
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Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.
How did we get here? With "Twilight of the Elites," Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.
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Kevin Williamson's remark that a true patriot is one who avoids paying income tax, pretty much says everything you need to know about his lack of understanding of patriotism, as well as, republicanism, democracy, and capitalism. Which is also Mitt's problem.
interesting...he made only $14 million last year. no wonder he's so down on europeans. he knows he's nothing more than a "commoner" to them --- because that $14 million would only be enough to keep Downton Abbey running, and out of bankruptcy, for just 6 lousy months! (with no room in the budget for dressage, it goes without saying.) better stay this side of the atlantic, mitt. you know what they say: "better to be a big fish in a little pond" rather than a minnow on the end of a poor european citizen's fishing line.
Do you believe that is all he made?
What about his "Offshore" accounts, his foreign investments, etc.?
OK,,, No Tax Records,, OK,, No Business Records,,
OK,, How About Religion,, No?
OK,, How About Your Massachusetts Accomplishments, Oh,, No Records Left?
OK,, Olympic Records,, Not To Be Found,,, Hummm???